Through the Eyes of the Assassin
by Waiting for Godot
Summary: "I don't do the whole heart to heart thing. It's kind of impossible when you don't actually have a heart." Separated from everything she's known, a fire nation assassin is confronted by her past and more importantly her future. Sokka/OC
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar. Nor do I own much of anything else.

**A/N: **I would love a pet turtle-duck, just so you know. Oh, and here's the regular speech. Reviews are nice. Nice people review. So on and so forth. Now that we've established that you may read and hopefully enjoy.

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**One**

"_The wages of sin are unreported."_

_-Unknown_

Concise. Stainless. She had been taught early on to be discreet. Now as she prowled along the shadows, she felt assured that her mission had gone without fail. Not even the faintest smudge of ash had been left behind. By sunrise General Hisoka would no longer exist, his body incinerated and his name black-listed. No one would question his disappearance, for she had allowed time for the rumors to spread; rumors of the Fire Lord's displeasure with the general. And those that displeased the Fire Lord were forgotten, burned from living memory. That was her job and she did it well. By night she took care of the Fire Lord's more delicate matters. Men such as General Hisoka were beyond legal reproach. Their crimes were minimal; perhaps an ill-spoken word whispered to a friend, a complaint with the way things were done. Such crimes didn't warrant punishment in the courts, but any offense to the Fire Lord was punishable by death. Though everyone would know who ordered General Hisoka's assassination, no one would dare accuse their great leader for fear of meeting the same fate. And though everyone would know, she never left a shred of evidence.

Isa was one of a select society of assassins, hand chosen by Masao, master of the art of death. He disdained the filth and brutality of the battlefield, but worshipped the whisper of a blade and the sweet song of a final breath. He'd instilled Isa, his youngest pupil, with an appreciation for the delicate craftsmanship of killing. "Anyone can end a life, but only a few can find the beauty," he reminded her daily. Yet as his prized student, Isa had never become one of those few. She wouldn't admit it even to herself, but a deep fear was rooted within her. Death was the card she'd been dealt. She was the bringer and the bearer of it, but she also held it at arm's length. Master Masao relished in his victims. He felt their dying breath and waited for their bodies to grow cold. "The look in their eyes once all the life has left, there is nothing quite like it," he'd told her when she was a young girl. Isa never looked into their eyes, no matter how often he encouraged her to. She never confronted death, and in this way she separated herself from her actions. Concise and stainless. Cold, with the true heart of an assassin. A heart closely monitored and tampered by duty. She killed for her Fire Lord and for her nation. She killed because it was what she was told to do. What other choice existed?

Tucking away the night's deeds, letting the guilt of her actions be covered by shadows, Isa approached the palace gates. The guards let her pass without comment. She was no stranger to the Fire Lord's home. Often she was summoned for her services. Tonight was no different. Having completed one mission, Isa was moving without pause to her next. There was no rest for a fire nation assassin.

It had been seven years since the Avatar's downfall. Isa hardly remembered. She'd been a child at the time, a naïve girl fresh from the Earth Kingdom colonies and still in awe of the capital. Now the Avatar was nothing, a joke. Hope dimmed with his demise, but the rebellion had managed to survive, an echo of the threat it had once been. The war continued to rage, as it had for over a hundred years, and the rebels surfaced from time to time. Isa was kept busy. Aside from her secret, nightly errands, she was occasionally sent on rebel-wrangling pursuits. Isa suspected that tonight she was being summoned for one such assignment, because the order for her presence had been issued by Princess Azula.

Typically the Princess led the rebel scouring and she faithfully recruited her three loyal puppets to accompany her; Mai, Ty Lee, and Isa. Although Isa was much younger, it hadn't taken Azula long to register her value. It was an honor to be a member of the Princess' inner circle, but to Isa it was more of an inconvenience. She dreaded missions with Azula. Working as a team was not an assassin's forte. Isa preferred the solitude of darkness. However to refuse the Princess was suicide. Dutifully she served as Azula's lap polar bear-dog. Again, what other choice existed?

Isa made her way silently to the palace's inner courtyard, careful to avoid the guards on patrol. After a kill, she avoided everyone and everything. Of course she avoided everyone and everything at every other time as well. The deserted courtyard greeted her like a breath of fresh air. Soon Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai would intrude upon her moment of peace, so she would enjoy her time alone. Fire dragons knew she wouldn't find any silence in Ty Lee's company.

Isa moved to the turtle-duck pond, sparkling in the moonlight just up ahead, but froze as she caught the faintest stir of movement. Someone was reclining at the pond's edge. She took a step back, prepared to escape before they noticed her, when she heard the faintest whistling. She only knew one person in the palace who would whistle. Careful not to make even the slightest sound, Isa continued to the pond with a rare smile creeping across her lips. A mere foot away from the whistling man, she crouched low to the dew-kissed grass and sent a small shower of sparks into the air. They arched gracefully over the man. He leapt up, cursing, and hurriedly brushed the embers from his clothes before they could burn holes into the expensive fabric. Isa stood, laughing softly at the sight of Prince Zuko.

"Are you trying to set me on fire?" Zuko roared, still hopping from one foot to the other, shaking off the sparks.

"I don't _try_, Prince Zuko. I do." He looked up at his attacker for the first time and narrowed his golden eyes.

"Should have known it was you," he grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. Isa crossed the rest of the way to the pond and plopped down in the grass where Zuko had previously rested. After a moment he joined her. She unlaced her leather sandals, the ones she wore because they made less noise than cumbersome boots, so that she could dip her bare feet into the cool water. A few baby turtle-duck's waddled over and bravely nibbled her toes. Isa sighed, content, and fell back onto her elbows. Neither she nor Zuko felt the need to say anything. They shared a love for silence. It was a long time before Isa finally broke the comfortable hush.

"So will you be going with us?" She tried to keep the hope from tainting her question. If Zuko was joining them on this mission, perhaps it wouldn't be as tedious. However Zuko's confused expression swiftly crushed this aspiration.

"With who?"

"Your sister summoned me, for a little outing I suppose. Didn't you know?" Zuko looked out across the pond, scowling. His scarred profile was turned to Isa and she had begun to regret speaking in the first place.

"No, I didn't know," he murmured darkly.

"I just assumed that since you were here, where we generally meet, you would-"

"I didn't know," Zuko snapped. The turtle-ducks nipping at Isa's feet scattered, startled by his raised voice. "But it's no surprise. I'm never told anything," he continued. Isa merely rolled her eyes.

"Poor Prince Zuko wasn't informed of one itty mission. It must mean the entire Fire Nation is plotting against you."

"You don't understand!" Zuko hissed, rounding on her furiously. "Ever since I returned father's kept me in the dark. He keeps me locked in the palace like a prisoner."

"A finely dressed and fed prisoner," Isa chuckled, flicking Zuko's silk tunic. He flinched away from her touch, his scowl darkening. She sighed. "You have to stop pouting, Zuko, and be logical. You're the crown prince, heir to the throne. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, your father is trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" Zuko scoffed. "He has a funny way of going about that." Absently, he rubbed his scar, still livid all these years later. Isa pulled his hand away.

"You're right. He isn't protecting you. He's protecting his lineage to the throne. If you die hunting down rebels, who will replace him as Fire Lord when the time comes?"

"Azula," he answered without missing a beat, bitterness in every syllable of his sister's name. Isa had run out of arguments. She could tell him that by keeping Zuko within eyesight and sending Azula out into the field, Fire Lord Ozai was demonstrating that Zuko was the more valuable, the more loved of his children. But it wasn't in Isa's nature to lie.

"He thinks I'll become a traitor," Zuko whispered.

"Well, it's not like you haven't been down that road before."

"But I proved myself to him, didn't I? When I betrayed Uncle Iroh…" His words faltered. Isa had never met the famed Dragon of the West, but she'd heard enough of Zuko's stories to know how deeply he cared for his uncle. Whenever Iroh was mentioned, a flicker of pain leapt in the Prince's eyes.

"Yes, you proved yourself," Isa said softly. "And your uncle escaped. I'm sure he's playing Pai Sho in an Earth Kingdom teashop this very moment."

"Or being picked apart by buzzard-wasps." Both Isa and Zuko turned sharply to see a young woman step out of the darkness behind them. Beautiful and cold, Princess Azula bestowed them with a vicious grin.

"Still pining over the fate of our treacherous uncle, Zuzu? Honestly, you're always brooding and frowning. It makes you look so ugly."

"Tell me your excuse then," Zuko grunted, rising to his feet. Isa rose as well, bowing respectfully to her princess and simultaneously hiding a grin.

"Funny," Azula said in a clipped tone. "But remember it's your unchecked tongue that earned you that scar. Perhaps you'd like another to match."

"Oh, play nice, Azula!" Ty Lee swung lithely from the tall fire-oak she'd been inhabiting and landed between the bickering siblings. Mai stepped from behind the tree's trunk, twirling a strand of hair around her fingers. She glanced at Zuko briefly.

"He isn't coming with us, is he?" Mai said with a sigh. Isa felt Zuko stiffen at her side. Obviously the couple had been fighting again. It seemed the whole of their relationship was built on a foundation of break-ups and make-ups. Isa didn't bother keeping up. She couldn't comprehend why anyone would want to waste their time on such trivial matters.

"Don't fret," Azula chimed, her cruel smirk returning, "Little Zuzu is staying here where he belongs."Zuko took a step forward, sparks leaping involuntarily from his curled fists, but Isa intervened before the feud could come to boil. She side stepped into Zuko's path casually.

"Where are we going?" she asked, slipping back into her professional manner.

"Misty Palms Oasis," Azula answered promptly.

"Isn't that in the Si Wong desert?" Ty Lee chimed. "I've always wanted to go!"

"Miles of sand. Sounds thrilling," Mai added, lacking any semblance of enthusiasm. However, Azula, as usual, ignored them all and continued as though no one else had spoken.

"A troublesome group of rebels has nested there. We're going to smoke them out." She conjured a small handful of fire to accent the meaning of her words. Then she sent the little flame past Zuko, a near miss, to the pond, igniting one of the turtle-duck's tails. The miffed animal quickly dove underwater to quell the fire and resurfaced unharmed, much to Azula's disappointment. Zuko could still feel the heat from his sister's flame, but kept his anger in check with a great deal of effort and a warning nudge from Isa.

"Good luck then," Zuko said through gritted teeth.

"As if we need luck," Azula sneered. "Have fun playing here with the turtle-ducks, Zuzu." With that last insult taken care of, she turned her back on her brother and began the march across the courtyard. She didn't bother to see if Isa, Ty Lee, and Mai followed. She knew they would. They always did, slinking along in the shadow their princess cast over everyone she passed. Mai, with one last glance at Zuko, set after Azula dejectedly. Ty Lee twined her arm through Isa's and stepped forward, but Isa slipped from her hold.

"Go ahead. I'll catch up," she said in response to Ty Lee's questioning gaze. With a shrug, the older woman caught up with Mai in a series of cartwheels. Zuko and Isa were left alone once more. Secretly she wished it could stay that way.

"You don't want to keep _her_ waiting," Zuko said after a moment, but Isa was in no hurry. She let her guard down, a rare occurrence, and focused on Zuko. He wasn't the same boy she'd first met seven years ago. He wasn't a boy at all anyone, but a man. Children didn't belong in the Fire Nation. Just sixteen years old and Isa had killed more men than she could count, not that she ever tried to keep a tally.

She couldn't remember her days of childhood. They were blurred by smoke, so that each time she tried to look back at them her eyes stung. Zuko understood. For a curtailed sliver of time they stood together in complete, unspoken mourning for lives they'd never live. Then just as quickly the moment faded, replaced by unflinching, uncaring duty.

Not quite knowing what to say, Isa turned to leave, and then paused. She didn't look back when she spoke.

"Do you ever regret coming back, Zuko?" There was a long pause before he replied and in that hesitation Isa found the answer.

"No," he stated.

"Of course not." Perhaps she'd misread his silence, because that wasn't the answer she'd heard.

Once more she plunged into the night to join Azula. It wasn't long before the turtle-duck pond was far behind her. Along with a moment of doubt. By the time she reached the others at the gate, Isa was an assassin again. Concise. Stainless. Heartless.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar.

**A/N: **Read, REVIEW, and hopefully enjoy.

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**Two**

"_Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at."_

_-Carlos A. Urbizo_

Nestled near the edge of the Si Wong Desert, Misty Palms Oasis thrived. On any other day the cantina bustled with activity; a center for black market dealings and crime, where no one was who they said they were, and a remote speck of dust on the map hardly visible to the human eye. Inconsequential. A utopia for the rebels, until now. Just outside the sloping outer wall of sand, that protected the cantina from desert raiders and wild animals, stood an enemy that sand alone could not deter.

Azula inspected the barrier wall, a crinkle bridging across her forehead. Where a gateway into the cantina had once stood, there was only more tightly packed sand. No noise drifted over the walls; no raised voices bartering in the market, not even the soft pat of feet in the sand. Something was wrong.

"They knew we were coming." Azula finally stated what they each silently assumed. Mai lifted her head from the sand, where she'd been laying for the better part of an hour, and peered at the barricaded gate through heavy-lidded eyes. Ty Lee straightened from her headstand, slipping on the slick sand. The desert constantly shifted beneath them. Isa felt sea sick from the rocking of the ground. She opened her eyes, reluctantly surfacing from her meditation, to await Azula's coming orders.

From overhead the sun beat against them in blow after blow of blinding rays, but Isa didn't mind the heat. From sunrise to noon she was invincible. At night the fire flooding her veins cooled. During the day, in that allotment of time when the sun rose and reached its full potential, the fire boiled. It took on a life of its own and she was merely a vessel. Her body was clothed in a fine sheen of sweat that simmered on her skin.

"I'm bored. Can we invade already?" Mai mumbled, standing up and dusting the sand from her robes.

"Soon," Azula snapped. Her eyes were locked on the sun's progress, waiting for the right moment, the very strike of noon. Isa breathed deeply as the fire within her continued to rise. It was an overwhelming sensation. She lost sight of herself in the almighty blaze of the sun, blinded to everything else in its light. Azula smiled, though the warmth of the sun never seemed to touch her, and turned to Isa.

"It's time." Isa didn't need to be told. She could feel it as well. Effortlessly, Azula demolished the cantina's barricade with a swift strike of lightning. Isa threw her arms over her face as a wave of sand broke over them. Buried for just a moment, she pushed her way to the surface to find herself standing atop a pile of blackened sand. Nearby Mai's hand struck above the earth. Isa tugged her free from the desert's clutches and they both tumbled downwards, thrown by momentum in a whirlwind of tangled limbs to the base of the mound. Sputtering a mouthful of sand, Isa landed at Azula's feet with Mai crushed beneath her. Ty Lee's bubbly laughter only added insult to injury as the acrobat slid easily down the makeshift mountain to join them.

"A little more warning next time," Isa grumbled, leaping to her feet. Azula flashed a grin. Not a hair on her head was out of place, nor was there a speck of sand on her person.

The four of them turned to the gaping hole left in the sand wall by Azula's blow. On the other side, the cantina looked frozen in time. Row upon row of sloping sand-huts stretched before them, but the streets were empty. Without a doubt the residents had been warned of their approach, however Azula appeared untroubled as she strode into Misty Palms Oasis with her faithful followers in tow.

"Come out and play rebel rats! I know you're here somewhere!" Azula called with an eerie sing-song note to her voice. They were met with no reply. Despite herself, Isa couldn't deny the shiver that snuck up her spine. Suddenly it felt as though the sun's heat wasn't reaching quite far enough to touch them. She wanted to be far from this deserted desert. Perhaps it was the shifting of the sand, but Isa felt unsteady here. Azula sent out a few more taunts, each of which was devoured by the dry air.

"Fine," she hissed after a minute or two of fruitless calling. "We'll have to do this the hard way." Her eyes, cold and flinty, grazed over Ty Lee and Mai before coming to rest on Isa. "Find them, all of them, and bring them to the center."

"A chase!" Ty Lee exclaimed, clapping gleefully. "This should be fun." Then she departed in a complex round of handsprings to the west.

"If you say so," Mai added, slipping two glinting blades from her sleeves and sprinting after Ty Lee. Azula hurled two streams of lightning down the center path, collapsing several sand-huts, and stalked into the dust storm of her destruction, quickly vanishing from sight. With a sigh, Isa took the only path left and veered down the lane to the east. It wasn't long before the crackle of Azula's lightening in the distance was joined by a chorus of screams. So they were still here after all.

Isa strode down the empty street, shooting streams of fire into each sand-hut as she passed. Rather than search for them, which could take hours, she decided to simply force them out. By the time she stopped at the end of the lane to wait, the air was thick with black, sulfurous smoke and people were flooding from their burning houses out into the street. They weren't quite the people she'd been expecting. Women and children. The veil of ash falling across them couldn't conceal their tattered, shrunken bodies, their helpless sobs as everything they had in the world turned to smoke, the very smoke that suffocated them.

A young woman crumpled at Isa's feet, desperately trying to beat down the flames that had caught hold of her daughter's skirt while keeping an infant tucked safely in her arms. Her daughter, no older than eight years old, peered up at Isa with hate in her wide eyes. It was a hate that Isa recognized, a hate that children should never know. Isa tried to look away, but it was too late.

For so many years she'd pushed them away, her victims. They had never been human, just jobs, but she couldn't deny this child her humanity. She could feel the girl's heartbeat in the slithering sand beneath her feet. Flesh and blood, there was no escaping it. Isa faced the girl. She looked into her accusing eyes and saw her reflection there; just as cold and heartless as Azula. Deep within her breast something long forgotten stirred, like the wings of a forbidden emotion trying to take flight.

Then she blinked. Isa swiftly clipped those wings and remembered Azula's orders. The time for sympathy was not now, or ever. Careful not to let her gaze cross the young girl again, Isa conjured a ring of fire to circle herself and her captives, an impenetrable wall that they couldn't possibly escape.

"Follow me!" she shouted over the roar of the blaze and began to walk, turning her back on the pitiful women and children, reinforcing the binds around her heart. She moved to the center of the cantina, where Azula and the others were already waiting with a handful of battered villagers trembling before them. Isa let her fiery ring drop and ushered her group to merge with the others by nipping their heels with spurts of flame. Then she dutifully took her place at her princess' side.

"Good work," Azula murmured under her breath. Isa accepted the compliment, though it stung her in a way it never would have before. The women and children huddled together in a tight knit cluster. There couldn't have been more than thirty of them.

"These can't be the rebels," Ty Lee whispered. "Look at them, Issy. They're half-starved and where are the men?" Isa's own doubts were echoed in Ty Lee's statement. Yet Azula was unperturbed by the turn of events. She eyed the poor wretches crudely. To her they were bugs meant to be crushed, vermin, and she enjoyed their fear. She paced back and forth among their ranks, holding their lives in her hands. This thrilled her more than the hunt, glaring down her prey and leaving them in limbo, leaving them to drown in the turbulent waters of unknown fate. Isa was sickened by the display of power. Assassins didn't torture. They acted swiftly to prevent the very panic Azula craved.

"I'm curious," she began slowly, her voice slicing through the air like one of Mai's throwing knives, "Curious about where your men have gone. Surely they didn't leave you here defenseless. I knew the rebels were cowards, but without honor as well? It's despicable."

"My father is not a coward!" Azula's pacing ceased. She turned casually to face the fool who dared to speak out against her. It was the child Isa had rounded up earlier. She broke away from her mother's embrace and stepped forward, thrusting her ash-smudged chin up in defiance. Azula chuckled and crouched to the girl's level. She spun one of her tangled, dark curls around her finger, and still the little girl retained her stubborn position.

"Aren't you the brave one?" Azula feigned sweetness. "I'd like to meet your father, if only you'd tell me where he is." To Isa's amazement, the child spit. Azula reared back, wiping saliva from her cheek, along with her kind charade.

"I'll never tell you," the girl cried. No one dared to move. Isa felt Ty Lee's hand tighten in hers as they both braced themselves for the storm to come. Trained in every aspect of death, Isa could now see it plainly written across Azula's face. The Princess scanned her captives once more. They appeared inspired by the little girl's boldness. Isa felt trapped by their hostile glares. There was nowhere else to look, nowhere to run, as they stared her down, blaming her for all of their pain until Isa felt it as well. She felt their cut faces and burned hands. She felt the sting of rancor infiltrating their wounds.

Perhaps they were starving and battered, but they would not be intimidated. Azula understood this just as fully as Isa and her patience, what little of it existed, was tossed aside. In one fell swoop she had the little girl pinned to her with one arm, while her other hand held a steady dagger to the struggling child's dirty neck.

"If you want to play games," she said icily, "We'll play by my rules. NOW TELL ME WHERE THE REBELS ARE HIDING OR I WILL SLIT THE BRAT'S THROAT!" Azula pressed the tip of the dagger against the girl's jugular, fluttering like the wings of a trapped dragon-butterfly, until a tiny bead of blood bubbled above her skin. The child kicked uselessly at Azula's shin, but the Princess was unaffected. She let her golden eyes scan the prisoners. Still no one spoke. Isa, horrified, realized that some hidden part of her wanted them to come forth, not so they could find the rebels, but so Azula would release the girl. _Remember your duty_, she repeated the unspoken mantra.

"Still refuse to tell me where they are?" Azula snapped. "Perhaps after you watch me bleed this little one you'll be more forthcoming." She applied more pressure to the dagger.

"STOP! Please don't…not my baby." The girl's mother flung herself into the sand at Azula's feet, tears leaving trails in the soot on her cheeks. "I'll tell you where they are."

"Mama don't," the child whimpered, but her mother paid no heed to her plead.

"They thought you would leave us alone if they weren't here. They thought we would be safe," she sobbed.

"Wonderful plan," Azula sneered. "Where are they?"

"The…the…" The woman bowed her head in shame, unable to look at the disappointment in her own daughter's eyes. "The Si Wong Rock. You'll find them there." With a satisfied smile, Azula tossed the child to the ground and strode the short distance to where Ty Lee, Mai, and Isa stood. Isa couldn't tear her gaze away from the mother and child. The little girl brushed aside her mother's encompassing arms roughly.

"You gave them up!" she howled.

Then Azula was standing before them, grinning in a manner that tightened the knots already forming in Isa's stomach.

"Kill them." Azula issued the order dispassionately. Isa was sure she'd heard incorrectly, but when none of them moved to carry out her command Azula spun on her heels, hurling a bolt of lightning from her curled fist. Before Isa's mind could fully comprehend, the lightning struck the little girl. For a moment their eyes locked, mirroring one another's shock and horror, before the child crumpled, a smoking crater where her young heart had been. Seconds turned to hours. The desert was still. Then a scream shattered the daydream of frozen time and reality crept into the cracks in Isa's defenses as she watched the child's mother cradle her daughter's broken body.

"KILL THEM!" Azula roared.

"But they're civilians." The words left Isa before she could rein them in. Something had broken inside her, and though she didn't like it, she couldn't ignore it. Azula stepped towards her, so close that hair tickled Isa's cheek.

"They are traitors and traitors must be punished," she hissed. "Now do as I've told you." Azula spun sharply and sent another streak of lighting to the glacier, the heart of the Misty Palms Oasis. The women and children scattered, broken from their huddle, as chunks of ice rained down on them. Azula was walking away, prepared to bring down each one of them. Isa remained frozen. Something inside her was cracking like the glacier had. Something had broken. It only took Isa a moment to realize it was her own heart. After years of having lain dormant, she now felt each beat of it, each painful beat.

Isa had killed before. But women and children? As Azula tore through the villagers, Isa slipped to another time and another place. The screams of the dying were too familiar. The mothers shielding their children, as though their frail bodies could guard against lightning, conjured memories she had thought were dead buried, but here they were exposed in the noon light again. Master Masao's voice drifted through her mind; "We only kill when there is a purpose. Slaughter achieves nothing." There was no other word to describe the scene unfolding before her other than slaughter. But she had been given an order! What other choice existed?

The answer that had eluded her all of these years appeared. It had always been there, but she'd been too afraid to see it. Too afraid when a child half her age had known and accepted it. What other choice existed? Her choice. To disobey.

"Isa, what are you doing?" Ty Lee cried as Isa broke into a run. She leapt over the remains of the glacier, once one of the wonders of the world, and found Azula among the smoke. Pushing aside the consequences, thinking only of the little girl, Isa let the fire within her free. She allowed it to act on its own conscience. Azula turned just in time to deflect a wave of flames. For once her calm, unflinching surety faltered as she recognized Isa. The two women fell into step, circling one another in the same pattern that both of them had been taught as children.

"No," Isa declared, pulling the word from the dusty confines of her mind. It felt foreign on her tongue; bitter, sweet, and laughably simple for all the weight it carried. "I won't do as you say, Azula! I won't kill these people and I won't let you either."

"Won't let me?" Azula cackled, swiftly regaining her momentarily shaken composure. "Don't be a fool, Isa. Step aside now and I'll forget to mention this little mishap to my father."

"No," Isa repeated, finding an irresistible ring to the declaration. She sent another wave of fire to Azula, but the flames merely parted around her.

"You'll have to do better than that," the Princess taunted.

They continued to circle one another, striking without reservation as fire and lightning writhed in a fatal dance. Soon Isa's breath came in short, difficult gasps, while Azula remained unaffected. She blocked each one of Isa's blows with ridiculous ease, but Isa was too far in to retreat now. She had made her choice. There was no going back. Isa wasn't even sure if she could given the chance. So she continued to fight despite her fading strength and despite her inferior ability. With each attack she grew colder, the fire in her veins fizzling, until in her exhaustion she let her guard falter for an instant. It was long enough for Azula to gain the upper hand. Her lightning grazed Isa's unprotected side.

Isa fell to her knees, hard. She was blinded by the white-hot agony severing every nerve in her body, but when her vision returned, she wished it hadn't. Azula towered over her wearing a satisfied smirk. She clutched a fistful of Isa's hair and forced the younger girl to look at her.

"You'll burn for this," Azula said softly, her words dripping venom. "And do you want to know what's worse?" Using the last bit of strength she could muster, Isa spoke through the pain.

"Nothing could be worse than being your slave." Then she spit at Azula's feet, paying unspoken homage to the little girl whose life had meant so much more than either of theirs. Disgusted, Azula placed a solid kick into Isa's injured side.

"You're wrong," she chuckled, crouching over Isa huddled in the sand, barely holding on to the edges of consciousness. "But don't worry, _friend_. I'll teach you how bad things can be for a traitor." One more sharp blow to the head and Isa let go.

She spiraled into darkness. The kind of darkness she had once hid behind. There was no hiding now. Death had finally caught up to her. She felt it breathing against the back of her neck, closing in for the last time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar.

**A/N: **Thank-you again for reviewing and reading. This chapter is a bit short, but it felt right to end it there. Soon the plot will kick in and the Gaang will make their debut. And keep in mind this story is set seven years in the future. Ty Lee may be a bit out of character, but they've all matured some.

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**Three**

"_Wandering between two worlds, one dead,_

_The other powerless to be born."_

_-Matthew Arnold_

The sun was slipping through the sky's fingertips, dropping closer to the horizon with each passing second, and Ty Lee knew there wasn't much time. Azula would return by nightfall. Wiping the sweat from her troubled brow she renewed her efforts with vigor. Her hands trembled in a manner she wasn't accustomed to, having spent years mastering balance, as she tried to clean her friend's wounds as best she could, using as little water from her canteen as possible. Isa stirred slightly in the sand, the chains binding her feet together clinking as she did, but she made no further signs of waking.

Ty Lee pulled the limp girl into a sitting position to wrap a makeshift bandage around her middle. Isa's head flopped against Ty Lee's shoulder. Her hot breath struck the older girl's ear as she whimpered.

"Sorry," Ty Lee murmured to her unconscious friend. "I know I'm terrible at this, but it's not like you're doing much to help." After tying the bandage in a tight knot in the back, Ty Lee kept her arms wrapped around Isa, unwilling to let her go because she knew this farewell was final. As memories glossed over her thoughts, tears welled from her eyes. She remembered the young girl she'd first seen at the palace eight years ago with grey eyes like moth-traps in the way they seemed to catch the world, drinking everything in. Ty Lee had taught her how to pick scorch-lilies without burning her fingers. Now as she ran her hands lightly over the angry welts along Isa's spine, she realized she hadn't taught her young friend well enough. Gently, Ty Lee set Isa down into the sand and tickled her cheek.

"Issy," she whispered. "Issy, you have to wake up now." She pinched the girl's nose and covered her mouth. Seconds later, Isa's eyelids fluttered. She was yanked from her dark slumber by an ache in her chest and the hazy realization that she couldn't breathe. In a panic, she lashed out. Her fist met Ty Lee's chin, but the punch was too weak to do any good.

"Calm down," Ty Lee said, grabbing Isa's flailing arms. With no one pinching her nose, Isa breathed in deeply. The scratch of sand against the back of her throat helped clear her mind. Strangely enough, in her cocoon of darkness, she hadn't forgotten anything. From the moment her eyes had opened she'd been aware of her fight with Azula and her defeat. She remembered the Misty Palms Oasis and taking in the blank stretch of desert, only broken by Ty Lee's worried face and their war-balloon, she was only at a loss as to how she'd gotten where she was.

"How…" Her voice cracked. She was overcome by a spasm of dry coughs. Ty Lee helped her sit, keeping one arm draped supportively over her shoulders.

"You've been out for a few hours," Ty Lee explained, understanding Isa's unasked questions. "After the fight, Azula loaded you into the war-balloon and we came here. She and Mai left a few hours ago to take care of the rebels at the Si Wong Rock, but they should be back soon. We don't have much time."

"Much time for what?" It took most of her energy to speak two one-syllable words. Ty Lee had leapt lithely to her feet. She held out her hands to Isa.

"You have to get as far from here as possible before Azula returns." Isa looked to Ty Lee's pro-offered hands and then to the lose chains around her ankles. Absently her burnt hands moved to the collar chaffing against her stiff neck. Her fingers moved over the symbols carved into the metal and she understood why she felt so cold despite the blazing heat. Isa was well-acquainted with collars such as these. Reserved for the most dangerous of firebending prisoners, they were crafted from a special metal that absorbed the energy within the wearer's body, making it impossible to bend. The loss of her power was worse than the bruises and burns. Helplessness overcame her.

"Go where?" she snorted, gesturing to the barren dunes of sand rising and falling as far as they eye could see.

"Anywhere," Ty Lee stated firmly. When Isa still showed no signs of leaving, she reached down to pull the girl forcibly to her feet. Isa yelped. Her head swam and she fell into Ty Lee, trying desperately to keep from slipping into unconsciousness once more. There were certain shadows she wasn't quite prepared to face again. Her stomach heaved in protest at the slightest movement and Isa soon found herself retching in the sand on her hands and knees. Ty Lee crouched beside her, holding her thick braids out of the way.

Once it was over, Isa collapsed onto her back, determined to make no further attempts at standing. She would lay here, the sand scorching and scratching her bare skin, and stare at the sun until it blinded her. There was no point in running, especially when she could hardly crawl. Her body ached. She felt the weight of her betrayal and its consequences strain against her very bones. But Ty Lee was tugging at her arms again.

"Come on, Issy! They'll be back any moment," she pleaded. Isa was unmoved.

"Let them."

"Do you have any idea what's going to happen to you?" Ty Lee snapped, reaching the limits of her bountiful patience.

"Death I suppose," Isa said nonchalantly. "Not to worry, we're old friends."

"Not death!" Ty Lee straightened. With her hands on her hips, she glared down at her young friend. It took a great deal to darken Ty Lee's mood, but at the moment her expression was overcast with roiling thunderclouds. She kicked at the ground, venting her frustration, and a cloud of sand puffed out from the toe of her sandal.

"You're a traitor, Isa! You tried to kill the crown princess of the Fire Nation. Death would be too merciful a punishment. You'll be imprisoned; tortured for the rest of your life."Isa only half listened to Ty Lee's rant.

"Should have thought about all of that before I decided to be bold, eh?" she chuckled. Perhaps the heat combined with the pain of her wounds had brought her to the brink of insanity. The full picture of what she'd done began to settle, but she merely glanced at it as she would any oil-paint in the palace gallery. She envisioned the future Ty Lee described through the eyes of someone else.

"You're right. You should have thought." Ty Lee heaved a sigh and collapsed into the sand beside Isa. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, almost hesitant. "Why did you do it?"

Isa pondered the question for a long time, oblivious to the sun's rapid progression to the horizon and Azula's inevitable return. Why had she done it? Why had she betrayed her nation? Oddly enough she hadn't thought about it until now. Was it a sense of righteousness that led her to disobey? Had the little girl affected her so deeply? Whatever the cause, the deed was done and her fate was sealed. Truth be told she was frightened by Ty Lee's question. Beneath the throb of her beaten body and pride, Isa felt a more potent pang. She felt her newly regenerated heart struggling to beat. It was a separate entity, a parasite that had taken root in her chest without her permission, and the only way she knew to fight it was to ignore its existence. Answering Ty Lee's question wasn't the way to go about that.

"I failed," Isa said instead. " Azula won. There's no point in trying to escape, Ty Lee. I can't even bend with this collar." She tugged at the metal band around her neck. "And it's only a guess, but I figure Azula has the key." By avoiding her gaze, Ty Lee confirmed the assumption.

"Then that's it," Ty Lee said, a spark returning to her voice. "You're giving up."

"I'm accepting the way things are."

"Way things are," Ty Lee repeated, exasperated. "You defied Azula, and though I'm not saying I agree with that move, it seems pointless to stop there." She cupped Isa's face in her hands and smiled. "You're already a traitor, Issy. The way things are supposed to be is already a little messed up."

"Ty Lee, I-"Isa began to argue again. The odds were against her. Either perish in the desert or a Fire Nation prison. At least the prison wasn't quite so vast. At least they fed you. But Ty Lee would have none of it.

"You can't give up now, Issy," she said quietly. A look Isa crossed Ty Lee's face, one that had always been masked by a cheery smile. Isa had seen snippets of it in Zuko; regret and longing.

"You could be free," Ty Lee whispered, smiling half-heartedly. Isa looked past her into the unfathomable reaches of the desert. She understood. Certainly the desert dangerous, perhaps impossible to survive, but each grain of sand was a new opportunity. It frightened her more than prison and torture, more than Azula's vengeance. In prison there was always the safety of bars. In the desert there was freedom. There was the possibility of a future in which she would have control of her own destiny. This went beyond disobeying Azula. Isa had disobeyed the very laws she'd set for herself and now there was nothing to hold her back. Nothing but fear, and she had never been easily intimidated.

Inhaling deeply, Isa slowly rose to her feet. She brushed aside offers to help. The world spun again, but she refused to kneel this time. A few hours ago she had made a choice. Now she made another that would change the course of her life. She chose freedom. She chose the capability to say no as many times as she wanted and to whomever she liked.

"I probably won't make it, but it's worth a try," Isa sighed. Ty Lee embraced the younger girl, torn between relief and terror. When they broke apart she looped her canteen around Isa's neck.

"What will you tell Azula?" Isa asked, concerned. She didn't want to drag Ty Lee into the mess she'd made. A sparkle returned to the acrobat's eyes.

"You escaped of course." She tugged at the collar of her shirt to show Isa the fresh bruises around her neck that matched the chains around Isa's feet. "I choked myself a bit while you were unconscious, to make it look real, you know."

"Brilliant," Isa chuckled. They faltered off into silence, neither quite able to express what they truly wanted to say. Friendship wasn't something taught in the Fire Nation. It was an abstract idea, but at that moment Isa gained a bit more understanding of the theory. She clasped Ty Lee's hand briefly.

"Good luck," they said together. There was no need to say anything else. Isa realized Ty Lee's hand and took her first step into the unknown. Powerless, lost, and alone. She didn't know whether she was making the right decision, but at the moment it didn't matter. She could either go forwards or back. Isa took another step towards the horizon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I feel as though we've been through this before, but I do not own Avatar.

**A/N: **Yesterday my world was destroyed. Avatar: The Last Airbender should never have been made into a movie. Was I disappointed? That's putting it lightly. Yet the cartoon still holds a special place in my heart. Moving on...here is chapter four, short again with a bit of a cliff hanger. The Gaang will arrive in the sixth chapter, ah so soon. Reviews, you should already know, are appreciated, but I won't beg. Read and enjoy. Signed with much love from your humble author, Waiting for Godot.

* * *

**Four**

"_It's when the sun shines the brightest_

_that our shadows appear the biggest."_

_-Robin Sharma_

One day blended into the next. Perhaps it had been months since she'd fled from Azula or more likely less than a week. At first she'd counted the seconds, minutes, and hours, hoping the steady rhythm of time would keep her from succumbing to the insanity that circled above her like the buzzard-wasps, waiting in the corner of her eye for the right moment. But 66, 474 seconds into the desert, Isa had lost count. She had washed her hands entirely of the progression of time. It didn't pertain to her in this perpetual place; where there were no landmarks to guide her. If it wasn't for the blisters riddling the soles of her feet, Isa wouldn't have known she was still moving. Nothing ever changed. Step after step the scenery remained stubbornly consistent.

She raised Ty Lee's canteen to her cracked lips, the effort left her breathless, and prayed for one last drop of moisture. Nothing. The canteen was bone dry, emptied miles ago. Then a desperate idea struck Isa. She wiped the sweat from her brow and licked it greedily from her fingertips. The taste was terrible, but for a quick moment, gone to soon, her dry tongue felt a bit less like cotton. Isa absently licked from her wrist to the crook of her elbow, while cringing at how far she'd fallen.

Freedom. No one had told her how difficult it would be. She'd had plenty of time to regret her decisions. If she'd only bitten her tongue and acted like the good soldier, she would be on her way to the capital where a cool bath and steaming meal would be waiting. Isa's nose almost burned from the spices in her favorite dish as she imagined it. It certainly would taste a thousand times better than her own sweat, which was unfortunately not in short supply.

Despite these regrets, Isa continued moving. When the temptation to forfeit sunk its claws into her, she thought of one thing only. Survival. It was all that mattered now. Everything else, from where she planned on going to who she was becoming, came in second. Not only did she have to fight against the heat and the desert; Isa was locked in a brutal battle with her own body. With each step the pain grew. Hunger cramps tied her stomach in knots, the wound in her side, Azula's brand as she liked to think of it, continued to trickle blood and a beige liquid she couldn't identify, even if she'd wanted to. Thought she was able to walk, the chains around her ankles were heavy, and the metal collar had scraped much of the skin from around her neck.

Isa could have coped with the physical discomforts alone, but the loss of her bending was a constant irritation. Adrift in an ocean of vast sand, she felt microscopic, and her vulnerability was increased tenfold by the inability to bend fire. So much had happened in such a short amount of time and Isa had yet to manage a good grasp on any of it. She was confused. And then she was confused by her confusion, an emotion that hadn't affected her in so long. Without her bending, Isa was not whole. Azula hadn't just taken her means of defense; she'd stolen part of her soul. It was as though one of her lungs had been carved out and now Isa was struggling to breathe with only one. Though her vision was limited to escaping the desert, there was one thing she knew she'd have to do if she survived. Find a way to get rid of the damned collar.

Apart from the clink of chains, the constant drone of buzzard-wasps overhead, and the hitch of her breath, Isa had heard little else in the past few days. So when a new sound rose in the desert's orchestra, her ears prickled. She stopped, curious about the noise. It was like thunder rumbling in the distance. Isa tilted her head back to look at the empty sky, white-washed by the bright sun, and soon realized she wasn't the only one disconcerted by the strange sound. The buzzard-wasps that had trailed her from the beginning of her journey were dispersing. Isa shielded her eyes as the powerful thrust of their wings stirred the sand around her into miniature cyclones.

The thunder was rapidly drawing closer. Like the buzzard-wasps, Isa's instincts were urging her to flee, but something kept her rooted to the spot, watching the horizon. As the rumble grew louder she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd heard it before.

It wasn't long before her suspicions were confirmed. Still miles away, Isa recognized the dark shape scaring the unblemished sky, a war-balloon, and she didn't need to see the Fire Nation symbol stamped across its side to know who the balloon belonged to. Azula was coming. Isa had no intentions of being captured this time. She ran, the roar of the war-balloon drowning out all other thoughts.

Isa clambered to the top of a sand dune, clawing at the loose sand with her hands, and tumbled headlong down the other side. Spitting grit from her mouth, she leapt to her feet and continued sprinting. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, and the chances of outrunning a war-balloon, even had she been in the best of physical condition, were slim. The chains around her ankles tangled and tripped her. Within seconds she could hardly breathe. Together the roar of the war-balloon and the thunderous pound of her heart made for a dangerous harmony.

Isa didn't know how much longer she could force herself to move, and then the answer came. Glancing over her shoulder to mark the war-balloon's progress, she didn't see the squat cactus patch in her path until too late. Hissing in pain, she stumbled right into it. Sharp, thin needles sunk into her bare, blistered feet, and she fell, projecting her body away from the cactus patch.

The war-balloon was gaining on her, but for the moment Isa was sheltered in between two dunes. When she tried to stand, the cactus needles dug further into the sensitive soles of her feet. Certainly she couldn't walk until she removed them, but there wasn't time. She could crawl, but not fast enough. Isa scanned the ground around her in desperation. She hadn't come so far to be taken prisoner again.

Nearby a scorpion poked its head above the sand, before quickly sinking out of sight again. Isa had an idea. Perhaps there was a place to hide after all. Without losing any time or acknowledging the flaws in her plan, Isa began to dig. She scooped handfuls of sand aside in a frenzy, creating a shallow hole. Once it was just deep and wide enough, Isa slid in and hurriedly covered herself from the feet up. Taking a last, deep tug of brittle air, she brushed a pile of sand over her face and then pushed her arms under as well. There was no way to know if she was completely covered. Isa could only hope and hold her breath. She was buried alive, but she felt half dead.

* * *

Azula peered into the dip between the two sand dunes, her brows furrowed in consternation. Nothing on this mission had gone as planned. She should have returned to the palace by now and received the praise she so deserved for a job well done. It had been ridiculously easy to eliminate the rebels. She'd smoked them out of their goo-infested tunnels in the Si Wong rock and apart from those nasty buzzard-wasps there had been no surprises, not until she'd returned to camp to find the traitor had escaped. Ty Lee, of course, had been promptly dealt with. Azula did not accept weakness. Though she suspected Ty Lee's dishonesty, there was no proof, and the silly woman's story hadn't changed under the pressure of torture.

For three days they had scoured the desert. The chase was becoming wearisome. They hadn't found the slightest footprint to suggest Isa's course. Just when Azula had been prepared to issue the order to fly home, she'd caught sight of something flashing in the sunlight, a metal canteen. Now holding it in her hands, she traced the Fire Nation symbol on the leather strap and smirked.

"Ty Lee," Azula barked.

"Yes?" Ty Lee stepped forward, still limping slightly from her punishment. It would be awhile before she could cartwheel again. She paled as Azula held the canteen up.

"What is this?" the Princess asked calmly.

"Looks like a canteen," Mai replied, twirling a lose thread on her robes disinterestedly.

"Did I ask you?" Azula snapped. Mai's hands fell limp at her sides. She lowered her eyes. The princess had always been unstable, but as of late she had become a ticking time bomb. Though she would never admit it, Isa's betrayal had been a hard blow. She couldn't recall the last time someone had told her _no, _the last time she had been disobeyed. Who did Isa think she was? That orphan from the Earth colonies, who wouldn't have amounted to anything, had Azula not taken her in. She would have been just another dispensable assassin. Azula had given the girl honor and Isa had thrown it all away for a handful of desert peasants. The shock of her treachery, however, was overshadowed by the damage she had done to Azula's pride. Shaking the canteen before Ty Lee's face, the Princess was fueled by cold rage.

"Doesn't this look familiar?" Azula asked, quietly like a hunter approaching its prey. Ty Lee stared hard at her feet as she answered, afraid to meet the Princess' penetrating gaze.

"It's my canteen. Isa stole it when she escaped."

"Of course she did," Azula hissed, shoving the canteen into Ty Lee's chest forcefully. Without another word to her subordinates, she slid down the sand dune to the indent at the bottom. Ty Lee and Mai exchanged wary glances before following, as they always did.

"She can't be far," Azula muttered, scanning the wind-churned sand for any unnatural deformities.

Mai was moving to the small patch of shade afforded by the dunes, when she stumbled, falling face-first into the sand. With her ear pressed to the ground, she heard a soft groan, and her pulse quickened. Mai sat up and found the source of her sudden clumsiness. She'd tripped on a foot, a human foot, poking out of the sand. Once the initial shock settled, she noticed the metal shackle strapped around the disembodied ankle. Isa! There was no doubt in Mai's mind that the foot belonged to Isa. And the groan…the groan surely meant she was alive. As if to confirm this assumption, Isa's toes wriggled. The subtle movement almost escaped Mai's notice.

"What are you doing down there?" Mai startled at the sound of Azula's voice. She glanced up, masking her momentary surprise with practiced ease, to see the Princess striding towards her. Any closer and she would see Isa's foot sticking from the ground. Mai had never particularly cared for Isa. She rarely cared for anyone, but if it was a choice between the girl and Azula, Mai wasted no time in choosing the girl. _I'm not always your puppet_, she thought bitterly, before sliding backwards casually, so that she was sitting atop the uncovered foot.

"I stumbled," Mai lied, her tone customarily flat. Azula scowled, but asked no further questions. She let her gaze wander between the two dunes once more. There was nothing, just as there had been nothing for days. While the Princess' back was turned, Mai stood and hurriedly kicked a mound of sand over Isa's exposed foot. By the time Azula faced them again there was no trace of the buried girl.

"She isn't here," Ty Lee stated, concealing the note of relief in her words. Azula seemed surprisingly unconcerned.

"She's out of water," Azula said, smirking. "And she can't firebend. If the buzzard-wasps don't kill her first, she'll starve to death. It's time we return home. My father is waiting."

"And Isa? You don't wish to find her?" Ty Lee asked hesitantly. Azula's razor thin grin widened as she stared across the barren plain of sand.

"Why waste my time any further when the desert is just as capable of dealing with her? She can rot here for all I care." Azula began the difficult climb up the sand dune, Ty Lee and Mai close on her heels. Little did the Princess know she had literally been standing on top of her prey moments ago.

Azula's war-balloon rose once more and disappeared into the cloudless sky. Still Isa did not resurface. Unable to breathe in her tomb of sand, she had fallen unconscious.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **Own Avatar, I do not.

**A/N: **I have been updating quite quickly, but the next chapter will be more eventful (which means longer). So it may take a few days to post. In the meantime, remember to review.

**jayrosew**: Yes, the movie is THAT BAD. They did not do the cartoon justice. Not in the least.

* * *

**Five**

"_Two wrongs don't make a right,_

_but they make a good excuse."_

_-Thomas Szasz_

Ghashiun's relationship with his father had been distant, at best. On better days they hadn't spoken at all, and on the darker days their arguments had carried to the neighboring Hammi tribe's camp. His father, Sha-Mo, was an idealist. He'd followed "the righteous path", a path Ghashiun had never traveled. In the desert there were no roads, but Sha-Mo had dared to dream of a world beyond, and although the sand-benders of his tribe considered him a good man, they could not forgive his eccentricities, his son among them.

Five years Sha-Mo had been dead, picked off by the dreaded plague of skin cancer that had taken his wife, and Ghashiun still clung to his stalwart grudges. Had he loved his father? Unshakably. Had they agreed on anything? Not even on the color of the sky. Ghashiun saw blue, while his father saw endless possibilities.

That had been the problem between them, the canyon that separated them and seemed to grow wider with each exchanged word. Ghashiun was everything a sandbender was supposed to be. To him the outside world was something to be kept at a distance, a dangerous and temperamental foe that could strike at any moment. He saw no difference in foreigners, regardless what sector of the globe they'd come from, and his many market trips to Ba Sing Se had exposed him to refugees from the most remote swamps to the cultured citizens of the Northern Water tribe. It mattered little to him where they'd come from, as long as they never wandered into his desert.

Yes, his father had been an optimist. He had believed that all people could someday live together in peace, but his father had died before the Fire Nation's final crusade reached their doorstep. Ghashiun, unfortunately, had been there to answer the door. Empowered by Sozin's comet, Fire Lord Ozai had launched his greatest offensive. His troops swarmed every continent, island, nook, and crevice, leaving streaks of carnage in their wake. Nowhere had been left untouched. Even the sandbenders, who had been sheltered by their desert for thousands of year, were affected. Tribes were ambushed and sold into slavery. They were a dying race.

Ghashiun and his young friend Jaul were all that remained of their own tribe, torn apart the previous year. They had survived by luck alone, having been sent to collect medical supplies from the cantina before the Fire Nation's assault, but Ghashiun could not forget the sight that welcomed him upon his return. It was forever seared into his memory; his home nothing more than a scorched crater in the sand.

Now he lived as a nomad with Jaul, venturing out of the desert only to sell his wares in the black market of Ba Sing Se. Business was slow however. Strangers rarely stumbled in the direction of Si Wong, and with no strangers there was no one to steal from, no wares to sell. The Misty Palms Oasis, once a thriving hot spot for trade, had fallen from its previous glory. Ghashiun hadn't been there in months, but he'd heard rumor it was infested by rebels.

Life was a tedious game of survival. There were no rules, and although Ghashiun and Jaul were cunning players, they had begun to accumulate a series of losses that no man could recover from without a miracle. Ghashiun did not believe in miracles.

The two young men were currently on their way to Ba Sing Se with a sack of cheap trinkets they'd managed to pilfer. Even if they were fortunate, their stock wouldn't rein in enough for two meals. Ghashiun's stomach protested another day of stale bread. They'd been travelling for a little over a week, stopping briefly here and there to recuperate. As the sun mocked them from its high throne, Ghashiun and Jaul continued to bend the sand around them. The movements were as natural to them as breathing. Their glider sliced elegantly across the desert.

"Ghashiun!" Jaul cried suddenly. His arms fell to his sides as he stood transfixed by the clumsy shape rising into the sky, like three buzzard-wasps tied together. Unable to control the glider on his own, Ghashiun also ceased his movements.

"What are you…?" Then he saw it as well; a giant burgundy balloon with an emblem of three-pronged flames. "Fire Nation," Ghashiun muttered mutinously.

"Looks like they're leaving," Jaul added. Sure enough the balloon was drifting away. They watched silently until it was out of sight, nearly too afraid to speak in case the balloon's occupants overheard. Jaul let out a stream of pent up air once the coast was clear.

"Think they had anything to do with the slaughter at the oasis?" he asked.

"Maybe," Ghashiun replied, with a shrug. "We should leave in case they decide to come back." He wanted as much distance between himself and the war-balloon as possible. The Si Wong desert was sacred to the sandbenders, and it was tainted wherever the Fire Nation set foot. Ghashiun felt as though he'd stumbled into unholy territory. His nose burned from lingering traces of the charred scent most of the Fire soldiers left behind.

"Come on," he ordered, lifting his arms to bend, but Jaul wasn't paying attention. His sharp eyes had lit upon something else, something equally, if not more, shocking than the giant balloon. He'd woken up that morning expecting an ordinary day, like all the others, and had instead fallen across something extraordinary.

"What are you looking at now?" Ghashiun groaned, losing his patience. Jaul ignored his friend. He leapt off of the glider, landing stoutly, as only a true sandbender could, in the tricky sand, and scurried to the new object of his curiosity. Surely the sunlight was playing tricks on his eyes, but no, it was just as he'd thought. There was a face in the ground, the face of a woman. The currents of the departing war-balloon had uncovered only bits of her; a hand curled into a tight fist and two feet chained together.

"There's a woman!" Jaul cried, his voice brimming with excitement.

"A what?" Ghashiun called back, unable to believe he'd heard correctly. He moved quickly to where his companion knelt.

"A girl actually," Jaul said, as he placed his ear close to her mouth. "And she isn't breathing."

Ghashiun was not the type of man to be thrown off guard. He'd taken his first steps in the desert, where the ground was never still. Balance was the one trade he had mastered, but at the moment he felt unsettled. A buried woman? A Fire Nation war-balloon? Could they possibly be connected? As he tried to force the jagged pieces of this puzzle together, Jaul was busy freeing the girl from her makeshift tomb. He grimaced at the sight of her uncovered body, decorated by fresh burns. She had obviously been through a terrible ordeal. Gently, he brushed his thumb across her cheek, still warm.

"Is she dead?" Ghashiun struggled to recall his voice.

"Yes," Jaul muttered darkly. Rage overwhelmed him, a rage he had not felt since discovering the bodies of his mother and sisters, scorched and tossed aside by the Fire Nation like this girl's. His hand wandered to her neck, over the strange collar, when he felt something leap beneath his fingertips. Faint, but stubborn, a pulse.

"No!" Jaul exclaimed. "She's alive!"

"But you said she wasn't breathing," Ghashiun argued.

"I think she's choking." Jaul tilted the girl's head back slightly, opening her airway, and applied pressure to her jaw to pull it forward. With his free hand, he pinched her nose closed and wasted no time in placing his mouth over hers. Ghashiun merely watched, unsure what to do, as Jaul blew two quick breaths into the girl's lungs. He looked sideways, hoping for her chest to rise. When it didn't, he repeated the process. Again. And again. Until at last her chest rose. Jaul released her nose and sighed in relief as her chest then fell. Rise and fall.

"Is she alright?" Ghashiun stammered hesitantly. As if in answer to his question, the girl gasped and gurgled. Jaul turned her over quickly before she could begin vomiting. There was nothing more to do as she heaved, earthquakes tearing through her fragile body. It seemed like she coughed up the entire desert. Once finished, the girl collapsed, unconscious, but breathing evenly.

"Now she's alright," Jaul stated.

"How did you know to do that?" Ghashiun asked. "Bring people back from the dead!"

"She wasn't dead," Jaul chuckled. "And my father was a healer, remember?"

"Oh right." Ghashiun turned his attention to the girl, trying to regain his shaken composure. It was difficult to decipher if she was attractive or not beneath the thick covering of dirt and blood she wore. Perhaps after a dunk in the river and a bit of tending to her injuries, she could pass for pretty.

Ghashiun thought of the empty leather pouch tied to his belt and he imagined it jingling sweetly with gold coins. The bag of trinkets on their sand glider wouldn't bring his dream to reality, but the girl…Women were traded like cattle on the black market every day. With life made increasingly depressing by the Fire Nation, men were now, more than ever before, searching for distractions, and they were willing to pay a heavy price from both pocket and soul. Greed rolled over Ghashiun in a dark cloud as he peered down at the girl. Yes, underneath the grime, she might fetch a mighty fine reward.

"We'll sell her," Ghashiun declared. Once the words left the dark recesses of his mind, there was no reeling them back in. He was hungry, tired, desperate.

"Sell her?" Jaul's eyes widened in horror. He was still crouched beside the girl, a hand on her feverish brow.

"Just think about it," Ghashiun pressed on, "Think of the money someone would be willing to pay for her."

"We sell stolen jewelry, pottery, things that don't live, breathe, and feel," Jaul hissed, glaring at his companion. "Have we sunk so low that we're willing to sell people? It's wrong."

"Wrong!" Ghashiun threw his hands into the air. "We're starving, Jaul. Wrong and right don't exist anymore. There's only survival. It's us or them." He jabbed his finger at the motionless girl. "It's us or her."

Jaul opened his mouth to argue, but no sound came. He couldn't disagree with Ghashiun when his own body ached so much. There was no denying that soon they would be left with nothing. Soon their bones would be crushed by the weight of desperate times, turned to dust. Jaul looked down at the girl sorrowfully. She was so young, a victim like them. Perhaps she'd lost her family as well. But if they took her in she would be another mouth to feed, another burden.

"You're right," Jaul murmured. "We don't have any other choice." He scooped the girl into his arms gingerly and, with his head bowed in shame, carried her to the sand glider. Ghashiun followed. He paused briefly to drink in the desert of which his deceased father was now a part of, like everyone else he'd ever loved. Sha-Mo had followed the "righteous path", but then again he had never felt the pains of hunger or heard death tip toeing behind him at all times. He had been an idealist, but Ghashiun was not his father. He never could be.

Together, the two young men bended waves of sand to carry them on toward their final destination, Ba Sing Se. They didn't turn back to see the pieces of their souls they'd left behind. By this time tomorrow they would be well fed. That was all that mattered.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Avatar.

**A/N: **So, I lied. The Gaang is not in this chapter, but the next. I'm on vacation, so I will try to post as soon as possible. Read, REVIEW, and enjoy.

**P.S. Shenzuul: **Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you :D

* * *

**Six**

"_Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster,_

_and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."_

_-Friedrich Nietzsche_

"Dinnertime! Come n' get it, you stinkin' hog-monkeys."

As the other prisoner's rushed forward, crawling over one another in a tangle of emaciated limbs, Isa curled further into her corner of the cage. Iron bars pressed against her spine. Through a dark curtain of tangled hair, she watched the guards swing their buckets, full of barely edible scraps, just out of reach. The prisoner's begged, their skeletal arms reaching desperately, while the guard's kicked them back with iron-toed boots and laughed. It was entertainment to them.

She had been there for two short days and already Isa hated the guards perhaps as much as she hated Azula. When they finally tossed the contents of their buckets through the bars of the cage, the prisoners became something less than human. They clawed at one another, prepared to go to war for a possum-chicken bone that still had a few shreds of sinewy meat left. The overpowering smell of rotting food made her stomach churn, but the sight of her fellow prisoners was far more sickening. She saw a man kick a young boy in the ribs for a moldy cabbage leaf. Most of them didn't even bother picking the scraps off the dusty ground. They crawled face down with their mouths open, licking slops from the dirt.

Isa couldn't watch for long. She let her hair fall into her eyes once more and tucked her knees into her chest, trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible. She had tried so hard to escape the desert, and now that she had miraculously found her way out, she longed to return. She would have gladly drowned in her sand pit rather than suffer the degradation, the pure torment, of her current prison. Isa was still unsure how or why she had ended up in this place. She remembered waiting for Azula to find her, her heart pounding so loudly it was bound to give her away, and then she'd woken up in a barred compound, locked away with two dozen others. She'd made the mistake of asking the other prisoners where they were and had a nice collection of fresh bruises to prove it. Isa had tucked away her questions and retreated to her corner of the cage. No one bothered her if they didn't notice her.

Isa's mind had been reeling non-stop since she'd woken, the gears in her dusty thoughts searching for an escape route. It didn't really matter how she'd gotten there or where it was exactly that "there" was. The most important factor was how she was going to get out. So far she'd found no solution. She had memorized her surroundings as a trained assassin always should. Their floorless cage was fourteen feet long, eight feet wide. On the other side of a square dirt yard was another cell identical to Isa's. Both of them were enclosed by a grey stone wall, too tall to be climbed. She had tried slipping through the iron bars of her lockup, but even half-starved she couldn't fit. None of the guards carried keys. Even if they had she wouldn't have been able to get close enough to steal them. The guards enjoyed kicking anyone who approached them. After encountering one dead-end plan after another, Isa had accepted that she would simply have to wait for an opportune moment. Until then the only plan was to remain as inconspicuous as possible. However she hadn't gone as unnoticed as she'd believed.

An apple dropped onto her head and rolled into her lap. Isa, on edge for an attack, leapt to her feet and swung a punch. Her fist stopped just short of an old woman, grinning at her toothlessly. Isa let her arm fall, but her body remained poised for defense.

"What do you want?" Isa snapped. The old woman didn't answer. She bent over, grunting with the strain it placed on her brittle bones, and retrieved the apple that had rolled away in Isa's sudden launch.

"Eat," she ordered, thrusting the fruit under Isa's nose. Reluctantly, Isa accepted. She inspected the apple, pressing her thumb into the blackened spots and watching a smelly brown juice surface. She grimaced.

"Get used to it," the old woman cackled, revealing her bloody gums again. She sat down and gestured for Isa to do the same. Still suspicious, Isa crouched in her corner. Her eyes never left the old woman as she took a small bite of the rotten apple. It took every ounce of self-restraint not to spit the rancid slop back up. Isa focused on the ache deep in her belly as she forced herself to chew and swallow, even though it made her eyes water. The old woman appeared pleased. They continued to watch each other as Isa quickly devoured the apple, trying her hardest not to actually taste it. She rolled the gnawed core between her palms, choosing her words carefully.

"What do you want?" Isa repeated her previous question, but this time out of curiosity, not hostility. The old woman shrugged her bird-like shoulders. Isa hadn't noticed her before amongst the others.

"You've learned quicker than most to keep your head down," the old woman stated, her milky eyes flashing in approval. "I heard you asking questions the other day, figured I could give you an answer or two."

"Why?" Isa asked sharply.

"To pass the time." With surprising agility, the old woman snatched the apple core from Isa's hands and began to munch on it. "They're easier for me to eat when they're rotten," she chuckled. "A lot softer."

Isa ignored her. She was torn between curiosity and a deep-rooted survival instinct. The last time she'd asked any questions, she'd been beaten to a bloody pulp. In fact, as of late, she'd landed into trouble each time she'd opened her mouth. Isa was sorely tempted to take a vow of silence. But how much damage could this old woman cause, with her spine curved so far inward she looked like a human question mark? Who better to have answers? Perhaps she'd be able to give Isa new insight, a way out. With a sigh, she made up her mind, and pushed her hair out of her face in a gesture of trust.

"Okay then," she said slowly. "I'd like to know where we are."

"Yaa," the old woman answered promptly. Isa's brow furrowed in thought as she recalled the maps she'd studied in Master Masao's library.

"I've never heard of a place called Yaa," she stated after a moment. The old woman cackled again, spraying mushy flecks of apple against Isa's face. She wiped them away in disgust.

"That's because it isn't a place. It's my name. Ain't most polite conversations supposed to start with introductions?" Isa glanced over their surroundings and decided not to reply. This wasn't exactly the place for polite introductions and she certainly didn't intend to tell anyone her name. Luckily, Yaa didn't ask her to, instead she moved on to Isa's question.

"You, little Miss, are in Ba Sing Se." Her pronunciation of the Earth Kingdom capital was horribly butchered, but Isa understood. Well, that explained the constant noise coming from the other side of the stone wall. She'd assumed she was in a city of sorts, but Ba Sing Se!

"And do you happen to know how I got here?" Isa asked quickly. Yaa, however, was in no hurry to answer. She finished munching on the mutilated apple core and tossed it aside, where two hungry children immediately pounced. She watched them fighting for a moment, clucking her tongue sadly, before turning her attention back to Isa.

"Two desert folks, you could tell they was desert folk by the weird wrappings they had all over 'em, well they brought you and sold you to Nasser. Earned themselves a sack of coins too."

"Nasser?" A dark cloud passed over Yaa's wrinkled face. She leaned in closer to whisper in Isa's ear.

"Yeah, he's the master here. Everyone who's anyone in the Black Market knows Nasser. He sells more slaves than anyone else."

"Slaves!" Isa reared back in shock. The full danger of her predicament was coming to life. She was in a slave pit. At any moment she could be sold again. Rage swept through her at the thought. For too long she had been a puppet of the Fire Nation. She couldn't bear returning to that.

"Eh, you're lucky though," Yaa continued. She reached out to stroke Isa's smooth cheek. "You might be pretty enough to catch the eye of one of the wealthy buyers. Old women like poor me are always put to floor sweeping and crop picking."

Isa's eyes widened until she feared they might explode. A rich man's whore! Never. She refused to stoop to such a level. Her days of slavery were through. Never again would she be controlled by anyone.

Before Isa could ask anything else, a commotion erupted inside the pen. The other prisoners ceased their scavenging and began to retreat away from the cage doors. Over the sound of their panicked yelps and cries of pain, Isa heard the guards shouting.

"Back, all of you!" There was the familiar crunch of steel-toed boot as it met an unlucky prisoner's ribs. Isa tried to stand, both for a better look and to keep from being trampled, but Yaa pulled her down with unexpected strength. Her milky eyes were crazed with trepidation as she kept a tight hold on Isa's wrist.

"Stay low," the old woman hissed, her voice static with fear.

"What's happening?" Isa's mind was in a whirlwind of turmoil. She gaped at the prisoners. Some of them were trying to squeeze through the narrow bars, no matter how futile the attempt was, and others were crouching low in the mob, out of sight, like herself and Yaa.

"It's auction day," Yaa whispered, her stale breath creeping into Isa's ear. "Nasser's coming to decide."

"Decide what?" Part of her training as a Fire Nation assassin had included rigorous meditation sessions. The ability to remain calm in all situations, to keep a steady mind, was necessary in her line of work. Isa struggled to regulate her breathing, but the panic of the other prisoners was contagious. Looking into Yaa's clouded eyes, glazed over with such hopelessness, Isa gave up and resorted to just holding her breath.

"Decide everything," Yaa declared. Before the old woman could explain further, a sudden hush fell over them. The prisoners became stone statues, hardly daring to breathe, or even think for the fear that their thoughts would be too loud. Isa felt them trembling around her, one entity, united by terror. As one, their eyes turned to the gate. Now that most of the prisoners had fallen to their knees, cowering low to the ground, Isa had a clear view of the man now standing at the front of the cage, flanked by two guards. However, while everyone else seemed captivated by the man, Isa was far more interested in the open gate. Perhaps if she ran fast enough…Yaa must have sensed the girl's temptation in the quickened sprint of her pulse, because she dug her claw-like fingers into Isa's wrist, refusing to let her go. At the same moment two more guards moved in front of the door, brushing away any slim chance of escape.

Isa turned her focus to the man. One glance was enough to confirm in her mind that he was Nasser. She had imagined someone like the guards, but this man went beyond cruelty. His black eyes, hard like the jewels sewn into his fine clothes, swept over the prisoners calculatingly in much the same way that Azula often stared down her prey before a kill. While the guards were amused by the prisoners' suffering, this man seemed not to notice. To him they were not human, therefore they could not suffer. It was his total disregard for their humanity that made him such a lethal adversary. Whereas the guards were uncouth and unclean, Nasser wore a polished air. He stood like a man who had been born into power and wealth, a man who stood above the world and thought little of it. He was like an assassin himself. Cold.

Nasser moved closer to the swamp of ragged prisoners. His steps were light, as though he wanted to touch as little of their dirty corner of the universe as possible. Isa remembered what Yaa had said when she'd asked what he was here to decide. _Decide everything_. The prisoners shuffled aside, parting for Nasser. Isa looked away from his straight-edged face to his stylish foot ware. Her lungs burned, but she didn't dare breathe. Then he stopped, so close that she could count the stitches in the intricate embroidery of his arrow-toed slippers. Isa couldn't resist. She looked up through the dark tangle of her hair and wished she hadn't. There was no turning away. Their eyes locked. Isa felt as though she was staring into the very heart of the unknown, a swirling black abyss that enveloped her very existence. Yes, this was a man who could decide everything, and in the poisoned web of his mind he had just spun Isa's fate.

Without a word, Nasser turned to his guards, nodded once, and departed. Yaa inhaled sharply and dropped Isa's arm as though she'd been burned. The old woman scrambled away. Isa realized that the others had as well. She found herself alone. Nasser was gone, but their eyes had now turned on her. She was trapped by their haunting stares, more fear than pity. They looked at her as though she was diseased. Distracted by the odd behavior of the other prisoners, Isa didn't notice the two guards swooping in on her. Each of them took one of her arms, lifting her to her feet roughly. For a moment she was suspended in the air by the force of their combined pull, and everything became clear. Nasser had chosen her. Chosen her to be sold.

Exhausted, starving, and wounded, Isa fought. All Master Masao's lectures on the power of calm escaped her. She welcomed the panic as an ally; it gave her strength she otherwise did not possess. As they dragged her to the open gateway, Isa dug her heels into the dirt. She released all of her pent up breath into a single howl that sliced through Ba Sing Se. Miles away citizens paused on the street, startled and chilled by the soul wrenching sound. The closer they brought her to the gate, the harder she struggled. Minutes ago all she had wanted was to escape her cage, now she would have done anything to stay.

Isa twisted her arm free of one of the guards and threw a wild, lucky punch. Bone gave way beneath her fist and blood blossomed from the man's broken nose. She tried to run, but the other guard's hold remained firm.

"Little bitch," the other man mumbled, his voice thick from the blood pooling at the back of his throat. It was the last thing she heard before a sharp blow to the base of her skull silenced her howl. Isa fell limp. In the panicked prison of her mind, she continued to scream.


End file.
